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Sunday, 19 October 2014

Oh, so you a naturalist....

The topic of naturalism is something that I think I am perfectly equipped to deal with in the context of what I am going to write about today. Why, do I believe I have the ability to talk so eloquently about this subject? Well, because I actually am completely clueless about the philosophy of Naturalism. In fact, because I am in no way an authority, this makes this post even more rational.

It seems that when you are debating theists that they have a profound ability of shifting the Burden of Proof or throwing in irrelevant topics. In fact the one that irritates me most is when I am debating the concept of a god, then my opponent will throw out the question or assertion, "Oh, so you are a naturalist". Hang on a minute. What does this have to do with god? All you are doing is shifting the burden of proof away from the main topic of the debate. Essentially, you are playing the card that because an atheist does not believe in the supernatural that they cannot understand your argument. Well, that's just a dumb argument. Of course any atheist rejects the supernatural. It is your burden of proof to logically show that a supernatural god exists.

So for simplification lets put it this way. When you are debating theism, the opposing view is atheism. When you are debating naturalism, the opposing view is supernaturalism (or a-naturalism). These are not the same topic and while they do flow into each other at times. It is disingenuous to shift the debate topic away from the central argument.

Your thoughts?

As a side note: I am really trying to understand more about naturalism and the philosophy surrounding it.